How do you like them apples?

I went to the library last night and renewed my card while checking out some new books. I am a huge fan of the local library and used to check out books all the time. When I was young I would always return the books before the due date since I was too poor to afford the fines, and I loved to read but couldn't pay for all the books that I wanted to absorb in my fertile mind. As I became older and started working I would get sidetracked with work and the days would fly by without my having finished all the various books I checked out. So, I responded with two divergent strategies; I started buying more books and have now amassed quite a library of my own, and alternatively, I started running up fines for those books I checked out. When I went to renew my card last night I had 27 dollars in fines on my card! Actually, about half of that was to pay to replace a book I "lost" which was over twenty years old about the standards of how to repair historic masonry according to the Department of the Interior standards to allow one to qualify for tax credits. I actually couldn't find it for over 2 months and they finally just charged me the cost to replace it via email but a week later I found it in my trunk. I actually was ok with paying the cost of the book to keep it since it was a hard to find item that I tried to purchase online by looking on Amazon and other websites to no avail. I had turned the rest of the books back in a few weeks late but the idea of paying over 20 dollars in fines seemed on some level absurd so I delayed checking anything out. Finally yesterday I faced the music and paid off my fine. Now I can check books out again but have decided to turn over a new leaf and try and avoid any further late fees or other fines. We will see how that goes.

The whole episode brought to mind a good flick Good Will Hunting in which Matt Damon's character makes reference to the fact that one could obtain the equivalent of an Ivy League education with just a library card and a $1.50 in fines. A good movie even if Matt does underestimate the fines in my case. I don't purport to assert that I am anywhere near as smart as Matt's character; but I do agree you can certainly improve yourself with little to no cost via a local library. Andrew Carnegie agreed and commissioned the building of hundreds of libraries throughout the country around the turn of the 20th century many of which are still in use today. Here is the scene where Matt references the powers of a library card and takes the arrogant Harvard Grad student to task: